The Death of Sardanapalus
1827 OIL ON CANVAS
392 × 496 CM (121 × 163 IN)
MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE
Inspired by a tragedy by the poet Byron, this painting depicts the story of an Assyrian king, who, rather than surrender to his attackers, set fire to himself and his entourage. The chaos and terror of the situation is rendered with force and zeal. Delacroix has applied curves, diagonals, rich, warm colors and broad brushstrokes to convey the atmosphere of the moment. Viewers are drawn into the composition, from the foreground massacre to the figure of Sardanapalus watching the destruction of all his possessions.
Frequently named as the greatest painter of the Romantic Movement, Delacroix created sweeping, dramatic scenes in strong colors. His work was admired by his contemporaries for its compelling, evocative nature and his handling of paint was influential in the development of Impressionism. With its emphasis on emotion and color, his painting was the antithesis of Neoclassicism.
At the end of the 18th century, as the Rococo period was losing its momentum, Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was born near Paris. The son of a diplomat, he had a good education and grew up with a love of literature, music and art. He began studying for an artistic career when he was 17, with Pierre-Narcisse Guérin (1774–1833), and at the École des Beaux-Arts a year later. He also spent time copying the old masters in the Louvre, which instilled in him a huge admiration for Rubens and the Venetian painters of the 16th century. From them he developed his energetic, passionate style and warm, rich palette.
While his contemporary, Ingres, believed that a painting was nothing without drawing, Delacroix advocated the spontaneity of painting directly on to canvas without meticulous planning. He maintained that compositions should be constructed through the placement of color, and stories and themes should be conveyed with passion and vitality.
In 1822, his painting The Barque of Dante was received with great acclaim at the Paris Salon and was bought by the state. Two years later, he won a gold medal (the same Salon that had awarded Constable a gold medal for The Hay Wain). In 1825 he traveled to England and, socializing with English artists and literary figures, he became acquainted with Romantic English literature and the theater, which became significant sources of inspiration in his work. A trip to Spain, Morocco and Algeria in 1832 further stimulated him, broadening his range and providing him with new kinds of subjects. From then on, his fluid, spirited and vibrant paintings exuded a blend of exoticism and vigor.
His dynamic, flowing compositions and gestural brushstrokes were perceived as unstructured, but Delacroix always planned his works carefully and saw himself as following the established traditions of painting in the Grand Manner, albeit with a modern slant. From 1833, Delacroix spent a lot of time painting prestigious, large-scale state commissions, including the Salon du Roi in the Palais Bourbon (now the Assemblée Nationale), the Galerie d’Apollon in the Louvre and the Chapelle des Anges in the church of St. Sulpice.
Delacroix continued to produce smaller paintings and lithographs and over the years received many awards for his work. His output was enormous. In his journals he wrote profusely about art, revealing insights into his methods, his life and the times in which he lived. His use of bold colors and freely applied pigment, along with his lively compositions and observations of nature, had an enormous influence on young forward-thinking artists for the rest of the century, including the Impressionists.
Key Works
The Barque of Dante 1822, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE
The Massacre at Chios 1824, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE
Liberty Leading the People 1830, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE
The Women of Algiers 1834, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE
Sultan of Morocco 1845, MUSÉE DES AUGUSTINS, TOULOUSE, FRANCE
MILLET
1814–1875 • NATURALISM, BARBIZON SCHOOL, REALISM
The Gleaners
1857 OIL ON CANVAS
83.5 × 111 CM (32¾ × 43¾ IN)
MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
Millet’s sympathy for peasants is expressed in their poise. The figures are heavy, with curved backs and anonymous faces scouring the newly harvested field. They fill their aprons with any leftover grain they can find—a practice known as gleaning. In the past, gleaning had been represented in art through the Old Testament story of Ruth, who was a modest and virtuous woman. In this painting, the figures’ rounded shapes and the calmness of the surrounding countryside convey Millet’s interest in rural life.
Often described as the painter of peasants, Jean-François Millet represented the change from traditional painting to Modernism. His empathy with peasants, their difficult rural lives and the countryside in which they lived, was portrayed in many dignified works that were admired by socialists, but heavily criticized as subversive by conservative thinkers.
Millet was born into a prosperous farming family in northern France. He studied art locally, then moved to Paris in his early 20s to continue his artistic education with the celebrated painter, Paul Delaroche (1797–1856), at the École des Beaux-Arts. Initially Millet worked as a portrait painter, but after the 1848 French Revolution he moved to the village of Barbizon near Fontainebleau Forest and began concentrating on painting rural life. Although many criticized what they saw as a glorification of peasants, others admired his bold stance and approach. Those who disapproved of working-class people being the subject of paintings—regarding it as Millet’s criticism of French society—were countered by those who viewed the works as celebrations of honest and hard-working lives, depicted in surprisingly varied colors.
Millet’s style, although Realist, had none of Courbet’s dark, dramatic contrasts and unfinished areas. Whether working in oils or pastels, every mark was deliberate, every nuance of color and tone intended. Like Bruegel had done in the 16th century, Millet aimed to show the peasant world to those who had little knowledge of it. He instilled great dignity into his scenes, creating timeless, compassionate and serene works filled with atmospheric light and some sentimentality.
Millet remained in Barbizon for the rest of his life, except for a short period during the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871, when he returned to his home village of Gruchy. He became one of the central figures of an informal group of painters that later became known as the Barbizon School. United in their opposition to classical artistic traditions, and inspired by the work of Constable in England and the 17th-century Dutch landscape painters, they painted landscapes “en plein air” (literally, out of doors) objectively and for its own sake.
One of Millet’s closest friends was Théodore Rousseau (1812–67), one of the leaders of the Barbizon painters. He often helped Millet financially (he had a large family to support), and encouraged him to paint pure landscapes, which he did increasingly in later life. In the 1860s, as the controversy around his peasant paintings diminished, Millet became renowned and financially successful. At the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris, he was honored with a retrospective of his work and the following year he was awarded the Légion d’Honneur. By the time of his death, at the age of 61, he was a celebrated figure, both for his sentiments and his work, and his paintings became very popular. He was enormously influential on late 19th-century artists, including Pissarro, Seurat and van Gogh.
Key Works
Woman Baking Bread 1854, KRÖLLER-MÜLLER MUSEUM, OTTERLO, THE NETHERLANDS